Yep, got done last night at 2:00. 166,594 words. Comes to 417 pages (at 400 words per).
Been working on this sucker for almost 3 years.
Any agents out there, this is your big chance.
Yep, got done last night at 2:00. 166,594 words. Comes to 417 pages (at 400 words per).
Been working on this sucker for almost 3 years.
Any agents out there, this is your big chance.
Congrats! So, are you going to Disneyland now?
I haven’t actually thought about any kind of celebration. Sort of kicking back now that the $&*@@#! grind is over.
Did get laid this morning though.
Now the truly fun part begins.
Selling the damned thing.
Congrats on finishing though. That’s always a good moment.
Yes, I already have a nice collection of agent rejections. I’ll be sending off another 30-40 letters to agents tomorrow. It gets to be a bit expensive after awhile. With a sample of the book (30 pages), SASE, etc I’ve got almost $4.00 per letter invested in it.
hey whats teh book about ?and stuff.
It is about the Vietnam war. Takes place, mostly, from September 1968 through March 1969 in an area some 30-35 miles southwest of Danang.
Fiction or non-fiction?
How much research did you do? How much time did you spend in libraries and/or museums looking for source material?
How many drafts did you write?
How much of your finished work is the same as your original draft?
What inspired you to write about Vietnam?
Is this your first book?
Have you started shopping for an agent yet? If yes, how much time have you spent on it and how many manuscripts (complete or otherwise) have you sent out?
Do you expect to be published? Will you be dissapointed if you can’t find a publisher, or was the writing purely for your own enjoyment?
Do you have a pseudonymn?
Will your book make a good Jerry Bruckheimer movie?
Is there lots of sex and violence?
Has anyone else read your manuscript? Have you had it proofread and/or edited?
Did you use a computer, typewriter, or a pencil?
Hmmmm…that’s all I can think of for now. I’ll wait for your answers before I badger you any further.
Fiction or non-fiction?
It's fiction.
How much research did you do? How much time did you spend in libraries and/or museums looking for source material?
I was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. I did do some research on the NVA/VC training, equipment, etc. And I have a large library of pictures sent to me by men I served with to remind me of things.
How many drafts did you write?
I'm constantly going back and working on sections. Right now the ending is fairly lame, only been through it once.
How much of your finished work is the same as your original draft?
Hard to say. About half maybe.
What inspired you to write about Vietnam?
Lots of things. Not much of an answer. I felt like I had something to say.
Is this your first book?
Yes.
Have you started shopping for an agent yet? If yes, how much time have you spent on it and how many manuscripts (complete or otherwise) have you sent out?
I have. So far there have been three responses, out of 150 inquiries. It seemed to me that the responders were more interested in charging me "editing" fees than flogging my work.
Do you expect to be published? Will you be dissapointed if you can’t find a publisher, or was the writing purely for your own enjoyment?
I'll be very dissapointed if it doesn't eventually get printed some way.
Do you have a pseudonymn?
No. Shopping around for one sounds like fun. Dirk Diggler maybe?
Will your book make a good Jerry Bruckheimer movie?
Beats the shit out of me, never heard of him.
Is there lots of sex and violence?
One guy catches the clap. We don't get to watch or anything as he catches it. A couple days later he starts complaining about, as my hero put it, "The sizzling drip." There's a fair amount of violence, though that isn't the main theme of he book.
Has anyone else read your manuscript? Have you had it proofread and/or edited?
A number of people have read it. Mostly friends. They claimed they liked it but that's not the best test. They did all manage to get through it though. Proofreading and editing will have to wait on an agent.
Did you use a computer, typewriter, or a pencil?
Computer, I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.
Ok, so I’m bumping this, just once, in the pitiful hope that an agent, someone who’s blowing an agent, or someone who’s been blown by an agent will see this and take pity enough to want to take a peek at my work.
Off to Lions club now. Be back in a couple of hours.
I’ve got a few questions, if you don’t mind (well, if you did, you wouldn’t have made this thread, then, eh?)
What do you do for a living to support yourself as you write? I’m an aspiring writer, but I’m not too sure what to study so that I might have a career to fall back on (not that writing’s not a career–you know what I’m getting at).
Did you do a lot (or any) prewriting? I’m horrible at it, and I’m curious if I can get away with little to none of it.
How did you find publishers to contact? Did they require any sort of references or experience? Are there different publishers for different genres?
Best of luck!!! I’d love to know if you get published–it sounds incredibly interesting!
Questions:
My mom once said “everyone’s got at least one good book in them”. So, how will I know if/when I’ve got a book in me (how did you know)?
I find that being around a computer/TV stifles my creativity (and hence I never write) but when I am starved of modern wonders for a few weeks I become extremely creative and love to write. Did you need to “starve” yourself in order to find motivation to put your mind into words, or has this book always on the tip of your tongue?
Is your book anything like Armor or Starship Troopers?
Sandy Hook
getting an agent can be harder than getting a publisher. Editing and proofing do not, repeat DO NOT wait on getting an agent.
Your book needs to be as perfect as you can make it. If you can’t edit it or proof it, you need to pay someone to do that. Nobody is going to take a book seriously which is not edited or even proofed. An agent is likely to do more editing once you’ve found one and then the publisher will do even more editing once the agent finds a publisher.
Do you love it?
What follows will be impossible unless you love yourbook. You’re going to be re-reading it and e-reading it and re-reading it as you go over the editor’s notes, look for your own typos and errors, and revise it. You will lose count of how many times you have gone through your book. You will eventually come to hate your book, but you cannot go through all this unless you eally, really LOVE your book.
I speak from experience here. Finally got the damned thing published. Went through it a zillion times. There were still errors and typos and sentences I’d change.
You can’t do it unless you love the book.
Hey, congrats. I recently finished a novel myself (finished writing it in October, and just got out my query letters to agents at the beginning of February… no word yet). I didn’t celebrate when it was done, either. I’ll save that crap for when it gets published
BuckleberryFerry wrote:
I’m pretty much retired. I worked as a pipefitter for a number of years. Got hurt on the job and got a degree in accounting. Then one day I realized, “This sucks,” and quit.
I had been thinking about it for years and pretty much had the main story line down before I started. I did notice that after things got going the characters pretty much told me what they wanted to do. Unless they irritated me, then I killed them.
Don’t have a publisher yet. Still trying to find an agent who isn’t looking for easy entrance into my wallet.
Well, don’t you worry. If I get published you’ll hear about it here.
That’s great–I thought I was the only one who did that!
Bob55 wrote:
I don’t think stories are that hard to find. The hard part is making them sound real and be interesting. IMHO
The only way to find out is to try. Write a few short stories, two or three pages and see what that feels like.
I knew the book was there as soon as I got home from Vietnam.
No. I have the desire to work on it every day. The hard part is making the people seem real, it seems to me.
I read “Starship Troopers” (if that’s the one by Heinlein) when I was in high school. Don’t know “Armor.”
It’s nothing like I remember “Starship Troopers.” My book deals more with the day to day life we lived as Marines in Vietnam.
CalMeacham wrote:
You bet. I think parts of it are very, very good. A lot still needs work, some of it a lot of work. But it’s good to know that I’m now editing and polishing an ACTUAL FREAKING BOOK KINDA THING.
The rewriting/editing seems to go easier for me than the original writing. Sometimes, when I was stuck, I’d go back and work on the older parts. I think that by the time I got to chapter 20 it was easier to work on rewriting chaper 9 because I had a better view of what was happening/going to happen.
Congratulations. Hope it does well. What’s the title and subject matter. Will we be seeing this in Barnes & Nobles? Hope so, that’s were I go read for free while the wife is shopping.
What makes your book worthy of being published? Why would it interest Joe or Joan book consumer as a work of fiction they should spend time with vs the myriad of other choices out there?
What’s special or different about it?
I know these questions may sound blunt, but isn’t that what’s really running through an agent’s mind? How is your book going to help his publishing house and him?